Sunday, July 31, 2011

"A private battle rages at court for the affections of a childless queen, who must soon name her successor--and thus determine the future of the British Empire.

It is the beginning of the eighteenth century and William of Orange is dying. Soon Anne is crowned queen, but to court insiders, the name of the imminent sovereign is Sarah Churchill. Beautiful, outspoken Sarah has bewitched Anne and believes she is invincible--until she installs her poor cousin Abigail Hill into court as royal chambermaid.

Plain Abigail seems the least likely challenger to Sarah’s place in her highness’s affections, but challenge it she does, in stealthy yet formidable ways. While Anne engages in her private tug-of-war, the nation is obsessed with another, more public battle: succession. Anne is sickly and childless, the last of the Stuart line.

This final novel of the Stuarts from Jean Plaidy weaves larger-than-life characters through a dark maze of intrigue, love, and destruction, with nothing less than the future of the British Empire at stake".
~Lizzy~

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

In Washington County Oregon there is a library that is built on a nature preserve. One very beautiful aspect of being a park is they built and modeled the library building around the existing wildlife and trees. Us Oregonians are real suckers for a pretty tree but we are proud of it because we will not cut a tree down unless we have to. This library is proof of that. My kids call this giant tree pictured below the "Alice in Wonderland" tree and insist on always wanting to look in it. They seem to think that they just might fall all the way in to Wonderland. The trees in that cluster are giants and must be at least 50 years old because if I had to guesstimate how big they were I would say three stories tall at least. To get a better prospective of the height of the trees check out the third picture below that has the library which happens to be a two story building.

This just shows how this library was designed around the beautiful trees.

The "Wonderland" hole

The "Wonderland" tree is in the middle at the front of the library.

Besides a beautiful entrance the library also faces out onto the giant duck pond that connects to a series of ponds, paths, and waterfalls. There even is soon to be working docks for electric cars which I think is a first for the county. Here are some of the other places in the park.

A beautiful bent set of trees that is still growing almost to the ground. Behind the bench is a stream that leads to a very large Lilly pad pond.

Lilly pads blooming.

A small waterfall from one of many connecting Lily ponds.

"Tree Island"

I encourage each and every one of you to explore your local libraries this summer because you just never know what you might find.

Friday, July 22, 2011

"The Boy and His Pig", originally I did this one to apply for a job as a childrens book illustrator. I never heard back from them but at least I have this work out of the whole thing. It was suppose to be "whymsical" which I think it is. I love this pig I branded her a girl I guess and you can click on the picture for a larger image.

I made this one in my typical way of water color pencil with ink and some pastels after it all dried. In reality it is 11 inches by 17 inches which is pretty big I think.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

"Road from the West. Book I of The Chronicles of Tancred. Historical fiction set during the First Crusade. Available Sept. 2, 2011".

"ROAD FROM THE WEST: BOOK I of the CHRONICLES OF TANCRED

A tale of Courage, Conquest, Intrigue, and Honor

You know the Knights Templar, you know Richard the Lionheart—now learn the story that started it all in the adventures of the First Crusade.

Haunted by guilt from the past and nightmares of the future, a young Norman named Tancred takes the cross and vows to be the first to free Jerusalem from the infidels. As he journeys to the Holy Land, he braves vast deserts, mortal famine, and the ever-present ambushes of the enemy Turks—but the greatest danger of all is deciding which of the Crusader lords to trust. A mysterious seer prophesies that Tancred will find great love and great sorrow on his journey, but the latter seems intent on claiming him before he can find the first. Intrigues and passions grow as every battle brings the Crusaders one step closer to Jerusalem. Not all are destined to survive the road from the West".

"This enthralling confection of a novel, the first in a new trilogy, follows the transformation of a coddled Austrian archduchess into the reckless, powerful, beautiful queen Marie Antoinette.

Why must it be me? I wondered. When I am so clearly inadequate to my destiny?

Raised alongside her numerous brothers and sisters by the formidable empress of Austria, ten-year-old Maria Antonia knew that her idyllic existence would one day be sacrificed to her mother’s political ambitions. What she never anticipated was that the day in question would come so soon.

Before she can journey from sunlit picnics with her sisters in Vienna to the glitter, glamour, and gossip of Versailles, Antonia must change everything about herself in order to be accepted as dauphine of France and the wife of the awkward teenage boy who will one day be Louis XVI. Yet nothing can prepare her for the ingenuity and influence it will take to become queen.

"One of readers favorites, Frederica is full of surprises
When Frederica brings her younger siblings to London determined to secure a brilliant marriage for her beautiful sister, she seeks out their distant cousin the Marquis of Alverstoke. Lovely, competent, and refreshingly straightforward, Frederica makes such a strong impression that to his own amazement, the Marquis agrees to help launch them all into society.Lord Alverstoke cant resist wanting to help her
Normally wary of his family, which includes two overbearing sisters and innumerable favor-seekers, Lord Alverstoke does his best to keep his distance. But with his enterprising - and altogether entertaining - country cousins getting into one scrape after another right on his doorstep, before he knows it the Marquis finds himself dangerously embroiled..."

"An unconventional woman. A deadly enemy. A clash of intrigue, deception, and desire. . . . 1525: Artist Susanna Horenbout is sent from Belgium to be Henry VIII’s personal illuminator inside the royal palace. But her new homeland greets her with an attempt on her life, and the King’s most lethal courtier, John Parker, is charged with keeping her safe. As further attacks are made, Susanna and Parker realize that she unknowingly carries the key to a bloody plot against the throne. For while Richard de la Pole amasses troops in France for a Yorkist invasion, a traitor prepares to trample the kingdom from within.Who is the mastermind? Why are men vying to kill the woman Parker protects with his life? With a motley gang of urchins, Susanna’s wits, and Parker’s fierce instincts, honed on the streets and in palace chambers, the two slash through deadly layers of deceit in a race against time. For in the court of Henry VIII, secrets are the last to die. . . .Brilliantly revealing a little-known historical figure who lived among the Tudors, Michelle Diener makes a smashing historical fiction debut.
~Lizzy~

Monday, July 18, 2011

"Lady Serena Carlow is an acknowledged beauty, but she's got a temper as fiery as her head of red hair. When her father dies unexpectedly, Serena discovers to her horror that she has been left a ward of Ivo Barrasford, marquis of Rotherham, a man whom Serena once jilted and who now has the power to give or withhold his consent to any marriage she might contemplate. With her father's heir eager to take over his inheritance--and Serena's lifelong home--she and her lovely young stepmother, Fanny, decide to move to Bath, where Serena makes an odd new friend and discovers an old love, Major Hector Kirkby. Before long, Serena, Fanny, Kirkby, and Rotherham are entangled in a welter of misunderstood emotions, mistaken engagements, and misdirected love".

"An elegant literary mystery set during the Gilded Age.
New York City, 1911. Representing the widow of a Wall Street financier, lawyer William Dysart travels to a small Long Island town with a generous offer for Miss Sybil Curtis's cottage and five acres of land. But when Sybil refuses to sell, the widow threatens to use her influence with the state to seize the property.

Intrigued by Sybil's defiance and afflicted by a growing affection for her, William develops a desire to help her that becomes an obsession he cannot define, one that tears away the facade of his life, and presents him with truths he's unprepared to face".

"After First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte survives an assassination attempt, Chief Inspector Roch Miquel, a young man with a bright future and a beautiful mistress, must arrest the assassins before they strike again. But in a city with royalists and revolutionaries alike conspiring to overthrow Bonaparte, Roch's task is near impossible. And when his own father faces the guillotine, Roch has no choice but to trust those most likely to betray him".

"For the first time in one volume, Jean Plaidy’s duet of Borgia novels brings to life the infamous, reckless, and passionate family in an unforgettable historical saga.

Madonna of the Seven Hills:
Fifteenth-century Rome: the Borgia family is on the rise. Lucrezia’s father is named Pope Alexander VI, and he places his daughter and her brothers Cesare, Giovanni, and Goffredo in the jeweled splendor—and scandal—of his court. From the Pope’s affairs with adolescent girls, to Cesare’s dangerous jealousy of anyone who inspires Lucrezia’s affections, to the ominous birth of a child conceived in secret, no Borgia can elude infamy.
Light on Lucrezia:
Some said she was an elegant seductress. Others swore she was an incestuous murderess. She was the most dangerous and sought after woman in all of Rome. Lucrezia Borgia’s young life has been colored by violence and betrayal. Now, married for the second time at just eighteen she hopes for happiness with her handsome husband Alfonso. But faced with brutal murder, she's soon torn between her love for her husband and her devotion to her brother Cesare… And in the days when the Borgias ruled Italy, no one was safe from the long arm of their power. Not even Lucrezia".

"A private battle rages at court for the affections of a childless queen, who must soon name her successor--and thus determine the future of the British Empire.

It is the beginning of the eighteenth century and William of Orange is dying. Soon Anne is crowned queen, but to court insiders, the name of the imminent sovereign is Sarah Churchill. Beautiful, outspoken Sarah has bewitched Anne and believes she is invincible--until she installs her poor cousin Abigail Hill into court as royal chambermaid.

Plain Abigail seems the least likely challenger to Sarah’s place in her highness’s affections, but challenge it she does, in stealthy yet formidable ways. While Anne engages in her private tug-of-war, the nation is obsessed with another, more public battle: succession. Anne is sickly and childless, the last of the Stuart line.

This final novel of the Stuarts from Jean Plaidy weaves larger-than-life characters through a dark maze of intrigue, love, and destruction, with nothing less than the future of the British Empire at stake".

"Of the women in King Richard's life, she is the least known-and the most powerful.

During the Third Crusade, deaths from fever and starvation are common, but King Richard the Lion-Hearted has a secret ally against these impassable enemies-a mysterious healer by the name of Edythe.

She was sent to him by his mother Eleanor, and Richard first assumes that Edythe is a spy. But when her medical knowledge saves his life, she becomes an indispensable member of his camp-even as his loyal soldiers, suspicious of her talent for warding off death, call her a witch".

"A SWEEPING CHRONICLE OF ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT—AND CONTROVERSIAL—INSTITUTIONS IN HISTORY

With the papacy embattled in recent years, it is essential to have the perspective of one of the world’s most accomplished historians. In Absolute Monarchs, John Julius Norwich captures nearly two thousand years of inspiration and devotion, intrigue and scandal. The men (and maybe one woman) who have held this position of infallible power over millions have ranged from heroes to rogues, admirably wise to utterly decadent. Norwich, who knew two popes and had private audiences with two others, recounts in riveting detail the histories of the most significant popes and what they meant politically, culturally, and socially to Rome and to the world.

Norwich presents such brave popes as Innocent I, who in the fifth century successfully negotiated with Alaric the Goth, an invader civil authorities could not defeat, and Leo I, who two decades later tamed (and perhaps paid off) Attila the Hun. Here, too, are the scandalous figures: Pope Joan, the mythic woman said (without any substantiation) to have been elected in 855, and the infamous “pornocracy,” the five libertines who were descendants or lovers of Marozia, debauched daughter of one of Rome’s most powerful families.

Absolute Monarchs brilliantly portrays reformers such as Pope Paul III, “the greatest pontiff of the sixteenth century,” who reinterpreted the Church’s teaching and discipline, and John XXIII, who in five short years starting in 1958 “opened up the church to the twentieth century,” instituting reforms that led to Vatican II. Norwich brings the story to the present day with Benedict XVI, who is coping with a global priest sex scandal.

Epic and compelling, Absolute Monarchs is the astonishing story of some of history’s most revered and reviled figures, men who still cast light and shadows on the Vatican and the world today".

"After bloodthirsty revolutionaries murder her family, Françoise Despres vows to avenge their deaths and fight the violent mob destroying her beloved France. Becoming a spy for the counter-revolutionary cause, she knows great success, silently slipping between the shadows to carry secret messages that thwart her foes. But she never expected to come up against Sebastien de Brézé, a daring, clever cavalry officer in the revolutionary army and master spy hunter".

"Picking up after the shattering end of Gustave Flaubert’s classic, Madame Bovary, this beguiling novel imagines an answer to the question Whatever happened to Emma Bovary’s orphaned daughter?

One year after her mother’s suicide and just one day after her father’s brokenhearted demise, twelve-year-old Berthe Bovary is sent to live on her grandmother’s impoverished farm. Amid the beauty of the French countryside, Berthe models for the painter Jean-François Millet, but fate has more in store for her than a quiet life of simple pleasures. Berthe’s determination to rise above her mother’s scandalous past will take her from the dangerous cotton mills of Lille to a convent in Rouen to the wealth and glamour of nineteenth-century Paris. There, as an apprentice to famed fashion designer Charles Frederick Worth, Berthe is ushered into the high society of which she once only dreamed. But even as the praise for her couture gowns steadily rises, she still yearns for the one thing her mother never had: the love of someone she loves in return.

Brilliantly integrating one of classic literature’s fictional creations with real historical figures, Madame Bovary’s Daughter is an uncommon coming-of-age tale, a splendid excursionn through the rags and the riches of French fashion, and a sweeping novel of poverty and wealth, passion and revenge".

"In a tumultuous battle, a beautiful and determined noblewoman claims her birthright while awakening great danger, exquisite passion, and the mystical realm in this enchanting novel of suspense and adventure.

Prepared to lay claim to her family’s magnificent ancestral fortress in the Scottish border country, Lady Isabeau Blythe is determined to restore her noble family’s good name and reclaim these stunning, strife-torn lands. But even the headstrong Isabeau’s firm sense of reality is shaken by the inexplicable allure of Blythe Hall, an entrancing castle haunted by dark secrets—and otherworldly creatures of light and desire.